tablets were those used by the upper classes of society, and the
mention of venison shows that they valued game. Th e Greek
authors also mention venison when describing the diet of
the Persians, and at Persepolis both antelope and gazelle are
shown among the animals prepared for a feast. It is also likely
that rabbit and other small wild animals were hunted by the
poorer country dwellers—everywhere but in Israel, where
religious rule prohibited people from eating them. Onagers
(wild donkeys) were also hunted for their skins. Other wild
game, including wild oxen and wild boar, were hunted and
eaten in most of the Near East. Both wild bulls and wild boar
were dangerous animals, and those who hunted them gained
both prestige and protein aft er a successful hunt. Hunting,
especially lion hunting, became a symbolic activity of kings
to promote an image of bravery.
Not all hunting activities were equally prestigious.
Birds and small game such as hares and rabbits were hunted
or trapped, but without the fanfare that surrounded other
game hunting. Among the wild birds eaten were partridges
and duck. Other birds used for their meat, feathers, and
eggs were sometimes raised on farms, including geese, pi-
geons, and chickens. Th e chicken was a latecomer to the
Near East, arriving from the Indian subcontinent around
the time of the Assyrians (1813–609 b.c.e.). Even in clas-
sical Greek times chickens were sometimes still called the
Persian Bird.
Apart from obvious food sources, such as domesticated
cattle, both wild and domesticated birds, and fi sh, the ancient
Israelites also gathered and ate insects, specifi cally grasshop-
pers and locust. A taste for locusts was apparently shared by
others in the Near East: Assyrian reliefs show attendants car-
rying long skewers of (presumably roasted) locusts or very
large grasshoppers to a royal banquet. Th ese, too, were prob-
ably gathered from the fi elds where cultivated crops were
sown. Locusts and grasshoppers were not only a useful pro-
tein supplement to the diet but also reduced the depredations
caused by these pests on other food sources.
A number of ancient Near Eastern cultures, including
the Persians, ate camel. Although camels were more or less
domesticated by the fi rst millennium, their use as food un-
doubtedly began when these animals were still wild. Th ey
would have been hunted for their meat. Some cultures, such
as the Babylonians, also caught and ate mice, jerboas, turtles
and wild hare. Gazelles and similar animals (such as ibex)
were hunted and eaten as delicacies. Th e trapping or hunting
of wild animals gradually evolved from a necessary means of
subsistence to a source of luxury foodstuff s.
ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
BY KIRK H. BEETZ
Th e Asia and Pacifi c region is vast, with many diff erent cli-
mates that aff ect what sort of food is available from place to
place. At one time all people were hunter-gatherers, people
who moved around the landscape learning what to eat and
what not to eat. Some of them settled in one place or chose
to migrate between winter and summer homes. Others
chose to follow herds of animals. Still others chose to press
ever onward. Th is last group continued until they reached
Australia. Th eir descendants remained primarily hunter-
gatherers.
For the ancient Australians, the landscape off ered vast,
open lands where spears, arrows, and boomerangs were ef-
fective in bringing down game. For other peoples of Oceania,
there were small islands with big mountains, vast rain forests,
and much open water. One group, by far the most ancient,
was ethnically similar to the Dravidians of southern Asia and
to the Australian Aborigines. Another group, only beginning
to colonize the Pacifi c islands near the end of the ancient era,
was the Polynesians. Both groups had a dramatic eff ect on
wildlife.
Th e migration of people through Indonesia and across
the Pacifi c to Australia is just beginning to be studied, but
one aspect of it stands out: Wherever these ancient peoples
went aft er leaving the Asian mainland, they tended to exter-
minate the wildlife. Th ey would reach an island, feed off its
game animals until they were gone, and then move on to the
next island. Th ey used spears with fi re-hardened tips, stone
tips, or bone tips. Th e ecological catastrophe such habits of
hunting could cause can be seen in Easter Island (settled in
the 400s b.c.e.), where the people exterminated edible native
land animals and plants, leaving mostly fi sh to eat, and even
trapped themselves by destroying the trees from which they
could build boats, using the trees for timber for the roofs of
their homes and as logs for rolling massive stone monuments
from their quarries to the edges of the island.
Among the Polynesians, special hunting skills were
developing during the early Christian era. Th e Polynesians
hunted game not only on land but also in the sea. Th ey made
harpoons tipped with stone or coral. Th ey learned to use nets
to gather in fi sh in shallow waters and to hunt dolphins and
large fi sh out at sea. When foraging on land, they sought out
tubers, perhaps because starchy tubers were fi lling and sup-
plied energy. Th e people on every island in the Pacifi c near
Asia, such as the Philippines, Indonesia, and Japan, learned
to harvest shellfi sh. On the Japanese island of Honshū, people
ate so many shellfi sh that they were able to pile the shells into
large burial mounds.
Th e fi rst fi shhooks were used even before the last great
ice age. Th e fi rst may have been gorge hooks—double-pointed
hooks with a line attached in the middle. Bone, antlers, and
stone were used throughout southern Asia. Fish from fresh-
water streams were an important source of food. Th e earliest
depictions of bows and arrows may be in rock paintings in
North Africa from about 20,000 b.c.e., but some paleontolo-
gists believe that the bow and arrow developed much earlier.
Prior to the development of the bow and arrow, hunters used
spear launchers to maximize the force of their throws. Th ese
launchers were hollowed out wood, stone, or antlers in which
the base of the spear would rest. With an overhand motion,576 hunting, fishing, and gathering: Asia and the Pacific